IMB prayer warrior, SWBTS alumna Catherine Walker dies

Catherine Walker, who earned her Doctor of Religious Education from Southwestern Seminary in 1957, died Jan. 7 in Richmond, Va. She was 100 years old.

Walker was a Southern Baptist missionary in Asia from 1946-1980, first serving in China and later moving to Indonesia, becoming one of the first faculty members of the Indonesian Baptist Theological Seminary in Semarang in 1954. During this time, she mentored multiple future International Mission Board presidents who began as Indonesia missionaries, including R. Keith Parks (president from 1980-93) and Jerry Rankin (1993-2010). She also influenced countless missionary kids through an annual 10-day retreat that she began in the 1960s.

When Walker retired from missionary service in 1980, Parks recruited her to start a global prayer mobilization strategy for IMB. This entailed obtaining specific prayer requests from missionaries, sharing those requests with Southern Baptists, and then finding out how God answered the requests and informing those who prayed. Today, this strategy continues, albeit in a slightly modified form, boosted by digital media.

Baptist Press ran a story about this missionary and prayer warrior on January 11, detailing the impact she had on countless individuals, many of whom are now serving the Kingdom around the world. Read the full story here.